Three foreigners held for duping airlines

New Delhi, May 20 (IANS) Two Nepalese and a Nigerian were arrested here for allegedly duping various airlines to the tune of millions of rupees through an e-ticket fraud, the police said Tuesday. The Delhi Police Crime Branch sleuths nabbed a Nepalese Kedar Nath, 28, from near Rachna cinema on Pusa Road in west Delhi May 12. Two mobile phones and three SIM cards were recovered from him.

On his instance, another Nepalese Kailash Shrestha, 32, and Mikhail Akolade, a Nigerian, were arrested from their residences in Malviya Nagar and Tilak Nagar area, respectively.

Shrestha was arrested May 14 while Akolade was caught May 18. The police claimed that two laptops and three mobile phones were recovered from them.

“Their interrogation revealed that this racket has its roots in countries like Thailand and Singapore. They used to get stolen credit card details from their conduits in these countries,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Anil Shukla.

After getting the credit card details, the accused used to buy e-tickets of various airlines in the name of different people. The airlines duped by the accused include Air India Express, SpiceJet, Go Air, IndiGo, Etihad Airways, and Kingfisher airlines.

“They used to lure travellers by offering them cheap air tickets on condition of cash payment. After travellers paid them money, they used to buy a ticket from the stolen credit card details,” said Shukla.

“The airlines had to refund the money once the person, whose credit card details were stolen, objected to the airline company by saying that he/she had not used the credit card for any travel purpose,” he added.

The police said over 250 e-tickets and details stolen from at least 500 credit cards have been recovered from them.